Mostly About Organized Crime

05/13/2011

Nine reputed Gambino mobsters were sentenced on Wednesday and Thursday to light prison terms ranging from 18 months to 100 months after variously pleading guilty to the usual mob rackets such as sex trafficking, drug distribution, and gambling, loansharking and extortion as reported by Courthouse News Service. The nine defendants were among the fourteen indicted in April 2010. The other five defendants, including reputed boss Dan Marino, previously have been sentenced. Marino was sentenced last January to five years in prison after pleading guilty to green lighting a 1998 hit on his Bonanno associate nephew Frank Hydell whom mobsters feared was cooperating with the feds. If these boys were a black crew from the Crips or Bloods would the sentences have been as lenient?

01/21/2011

Last September Suzanne Porcelli pleaded guilty for her role in an alleged Gambino teen prostitution ring which prosecutors say involved girls as young as fifteen, and this morning she "was sentenced to nine months under house arrest" as reported by Bruce Golding for the New York Post.

01/10/2011

Reputed Gambino soldier Thomas Orefice and his alleged top dog Dominick Difiore pleaded guilty this afternoon as reported by Bruce Golding for the New York Post: Orefice pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge involving extortion, loansharking and gambling, and Difiore pleaded guilty to extortion conspiracy and drug trafficking charges. Orefice and Difiore were among the fourteen defendants indicted on various charges last April, and they were the last two to reach plea deals.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have declined to bring charges against Orefice's defense lawyer Seth Ginsburg after a bag of marijuana was discovered in his brief case last October while entering the Metropolitan Correctional Center to visit his client as reported by Scott Shifrel for the Daily News: "Ginsberg blamed it all on his brother, who he told authorities had borrowed the bag - and left the narcotics in it."

01/07/2011

Last September Suzanne Porcelli pleaded guilty for her role in an alleged Gambino teen prostitution ring which prosecutors say involved girls as young as fifteen, and although facing up to two years in prison under the plea agreement she is asking for a "non-jail sentence" since defendants in the hooker case which brought down former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer got only probation for their comparable roles as bookers as reported by Bruce Golding for the New York Post. Of course, there were no allegations that the Emperors Club VIP from which Spitzer got his girls was tied to the Mafia nor that any of its working girls were underage.